Braves third baseman Chris Johnson went 2-for-4 with a double and a home run in the Braves’ 6-4 victory over the Phillies tonight, marking the eighth consecutive game in which he has had two or more hits. MLB.com’s Mark Bowman confirms that it is a team record since the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966. Johnson entered the night leading the National League in batting average at .346. Tonight’s performance bumped it up to .347.

An obscenely high batting average on balls in play has been the backbone of his offensive success this season. It stands at .430, 38 points above the next-highest BABIP (Joe Mauer, .392) and 65 points above his career average. Per ESPN’s Jayson Stark, if the .430 BABIP holds, it would be the highest mark since Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson in 1911. According to Baseball Reference, there have been 27 instances of a .400+ BABIP among hitters that had enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. The most recent was accomplished by Jose Hernandez in 2002, but he struck out so often (a league-leading 188 times) he didn’t put the ball in play all that often — his overall batting average was .288.

It took fredi two months to move Justin upton from the heart of the order. During that two month span Justin hit two hr’s total. Bj upton will be back soon, and I am going to laugh when Johnson’s batting average exceeds bj and ugglas average combined.